How can small businesses elevate their email marketing campaigns through social media?

Small businesses rate email and social media marketing channels as the easiest to use and the most cost-effective for customer communications and marketing. No wonder social media is everywhere.
While these channels empower companies to better attract and retain business through creative email marketing campaigns, fully understanding the integration of social channels into email marketing is paramount if businesses are to benefit from online marketing and brand development. Consider the following the next time you integrate social media into your email marketing campaigns:

Identify the right channels. From Twitter to Google+ to LinkedIn, each channel has a different voice and a different benefit. To ensure that your campaigns truly resonate with your audience, be sure that you thoroughly examine each channel not only for the right audience but also for the right conversation.
The beauty of integrating social media within email marketing campaigns is that subscribers can easily share and promote content to their friends right from their emails. Social sharing allows businesses to take a more holistic approach to online marketing and brand development. This amplification of your message can make all the difference on whether your campaign is successful and ensure that the message is perfectly targeted for its intended audience.

Engage with your subscribers. Likes, comments and tweets are not just means of expression; they are also new forms of communication. Crafting intelligent content with only 140 characters might seem difficult, but a great tweet has the potential to reach millions, which is exactly what you want your campaign to do, right? These new tools enable email marketers to extend their reach, enhance the life of their email campaigns and create another means of building subscriber lists. With all these benefits, it's no wonder social sharing and engaging with subscribers is becoming even more important.

When used properly, social media can be a true friend, allowing your campaigns to take on lives of their own as subscribers begin to share content and your email subscriber lists grow.
Paul Turnbull is product manager at at J2 Global's email marketing services brand Campaigner (www.campaigner.com) and is responsible for product design and providing email marketing solutions for small and midsize businesses. He can be reached at paul.turnbull@j2global.com.